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With no offense intended to anyone out there who considers themselves a poet and writes lots of little poems about love or betrayal or their cat in a flowery little journal, I don’t consider poetry to be poetry unless it rhymes. No rhymes = creative writing (and not necessarily all that creative).

The only exception I give to that personal rule, and I don’t know why, so don’t ask me to elaborate, is haiku. They’re short and sweet and rigidly structured, not unlike a Lego woman. With that in mind, and because I can’t think of anything else to blog about today, I’m gonna bust out some freestyle non-rhymes. Nod yo’ heads if you feelin’ me.

First, some overly-simplified education. A haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables. The first line has five syllables, the second has seven, and the third has five. They came from Japan, as did the Nintendo Wii, although the two are unrelated. Here’s a quick sample I just made up:

I think you get the point. There was obviously no emotion or creativity put into that one, so let’s try something else. Something that speaks about my life.

Dudes, I friggin’ rock at haiku. Writing posts… well, that’s another story. I know what you’re thinking: “More, Zesty, more more MOAR!” Calm down, little ones, and stand aside. I’m opening the gates to Culturetown, USA.

Wow. WOW. I’ve always been one of those people who says they don’t know what art is but they know what they like. That, ladies and gentlemen is art. Soak it up.

Last one for the day, or I’m gonna have to start charging you guys. My goodness. This last one is about one of the worst people who has ever lived, so it might be a little dark. I say “might” because I haven’t written it yet and am not sure how it will turn out, but it is coming from a dark place.

Powerful stuff. I hope you enjoyed it; maybe we can do it again sometime. In the meantime, leave your comments in haiku form.

Ann-

Hey, long time no see. Remember me? I’m the guy you sang about in your All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You song a few years back. Okay so it has been… let’s see, Wikipedia says that song came out in 1990, so… 17 years. Wait, is that right? Has it really been that long? Jesus.

How’ve you been? Good? I hope so. I guess. Actually, I don’t really care; that’s sort of what I’m writing you about.

I mostly wanted to let you know that I think you’re an exploitative whore. Wow, does it feel good to say that. I’ve been bottling that up for a long time, and I probably should have let it go years ago, but now it’s right there on the paper in black and white. My therapist suggested that I should write you this letter and not send it, just to help verbalize my feelings and give me a sense that I had finally told you how I felt, but I fully intend to shoot this your way as soon as I put my signature at the end.

If that last paragraph makes me sound angry, it’s because I am. Not because of the one-night stand, as I’m pretty much always down for some strange when I can get it. No, I’m mad because you had to go and write that terrible song about the whole thing. Let’s take a look, shall we?

It was a rainy night
When he came into sight,
Standing by the road,
No umbrella, no coat.
So I pulled up alongside
And I offered him a ride.
He accepted with a smile,
So we drove for a while.
I didnt ask him his name,
This lonely boy in the rain.

First of all, this makes me sound like a homeless guy or any other brand of transient you can come up with. I was in a Kroger parking lot (not standing by the road, whore!) and my car wouldn’t start. You were coming out of the store and were parked in the spot caddy-corner to mine and sat in your car watching me try (unsuccessfully) to start mine. For, like, five minutes. It was honestly a little creepy, you just sitting there staring at me, eating what looked like Pringles that I assumed you had just bought at the store. Chip after chip after chip into your mouth, and you not taking your eyes off me for a moment. Weird.

So I finally popped the hood and got out to see what was going on under there. I’m not sure why, really. I don’t know shit about cars, so as long as all the major pieces seemed to be present (they were), everything would seem A-OK to me. I was standing there in the rain, staring at mechanics that may as well have been for a UFO, when you started your car, pulled forward roughly five feet, and asked if I needed any help. Since it was the mid 80’s, I didn’t have a cell phone and I didn’t have any change for a pay phone, so I said, “sure.”

I should have known that any woman who volunteers to give a strange man in a dark parking lot a ride was going to be trouble, so I guess all of this is sort of my own fault. But it was raining and I didn’t feel like hoofing it home. I’m aware of that, so you can save it (not that you could write me back anyway, as you will notice I have not included a return address).
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